4th of July Parade in Germantown Ohio Pictures of an American small town

Today I decided to go check out the 4th of July parade here in Germantown, Ohio. I drove uptown and noticed a little bit of commotion. I asked a guy in a gator, “Is there a parade this morning?” and he said it was at 11am. I hadn’t missed it.

I had a little bit of time to kill, so I took a little walk down the road in the older part of Germantown. Patty and I always love the beautiful front porches along there and many were decorated for the celibration of the 4th of July. Front porches are so neighborly, so inviting, so friendly. I am going to post some of the images here on this blog, but you can look at all of them here on my smug-mug site. If you or your home is photographed, you are welcome to purchase images if you like.

People begin to gather along the road in preparation for the parade.

Click on this link below to see a video of the marching band.

VID00616 Germantown ohio 4th of july parade

There are more pictures, but you’ll need to visit my proofing site to see the rest. Click here to see the rest of my parade photographs from the Germantown Ohio 4th of July parade.

Peter DeMott Photography top rated photographer in Dayton

It was a pleasant surprise to find Peter DeMott Photography on a web site called Thumbtack. The heading was Top Rated Photographers in Dayton and as of today it puts my listing as #5. This is just one place that brings together references for various types of businesses.

There are so many places that people can comment on your quality of work and service that it is easy for people to find out more about any business. But, as important as hearing good things is seeing good things. What I mean by that is when you are looking for a photographer it is very important that you connect with the style of work the photographer does.

http://www.thumbtack.com/oh/dayton/photographer/

Enjoying the style and work of a photographer is far more important than price or their rating on one web site or another. I don’t figure that my prices would be considered high for professional quality work, but you sometimes see people making choices purely based on price which I see as a grand mistake. Consider how long you will be enjoying or not enjoying a portrait on the wall of your home, or an coffee table book of portraits from your session.

How much difference does $100 or $200 difference in price make over 10-20 years. Let’s consider that. If you make a choice about a photographer based on a $200 difference in price divided by 20 years at 12 months per year that means you may have chosen a better photographer for about 80¢ per month or you may have chosen a photographer whose work you did not like and will be regretting your choice for 20 years for a difference of 80¢ per month.

Right here on the site you can also click on the menu item “Testimonials” for some ideas about how people feel about my work.

Testimonials can be found here

If you like my work and style, I encourage you to share my web site and also my facebook page with your friends. I frequently post images from sessions on my facebook business page Peter DeMott Photography and it is easy to LIKE the page and share what’s going on with your friends. Horse portraits and horse and rider portraits are also frequent on my site because of my specialty in that area.

If you do a search for Ohio Equine Photographer you will likely see my web site listed number one  or two on the page. A friend, Sally Shaffer, and I toggle back and forth between the top two listings (that is something that can change from day to day). She does lovely work as do many other equine photographers listed on page one of the search results. Of course locality can also be important with Sally being in Columbus and with me being here in South West Ohio (near Dayton). It is easier for me to get to farms and stables around Dayton and Cincinnati for example. Also, some of the photographers listed specialize in stock photography, show photography and other areas whereas I enjoy my horse and rider portrait work the most.

Thanks Dayton for rating me as one of Dayton’s top photographers. I appreciate any comments and connections that come my way.

Peter DeMott Photography • Senior portrait photography • Equine photography • peter@photosbypdemott.com • 937-478-6222

Creative senior portrait session ideas I would like to try

Inspiration from my friend Selley Paulson

I just got delivery of a blog post by my friend Shelley Paulson of Shelley Paulson Photography. In the post she explained that she loves doing portrait sessions around old abandoned houses. Dilapidated and overgrown, they provide such opportunity to have creative and different portraits. Here is Shelley’s post about an abandoned Frank Lloyd Wright style home which had been abandoned for many years. The roof was caved in and it was overgrown.

http://blog.shelleypaulson.com/?p=3530

This session was with two sisters, but it got me thinking about some options that I would like to try for senior portraits here in the Dayton area. If you would like to try one of these options for your senior portrait session, I am offering a $50 discount off the creative/session fee to the first one who calls with a cool idea. Oh, and you have to have the location in mind. It has to be a place you know. How fun is that?

Here is my list:

• Dilapidated, abandoned barn

• Abandoned farm equipment

• New farm equipment of the HUGE variety

• Abandoned rusty OLD car

• Abandoned warehouse or factory of some kind

• A barn with lots of antique farm tools hanging around

Help me grow this list

If you have an idea you would like to pursue just call me to discuss it. Call Peter at 937-478-6222. If you have ideas to add to my list that’s fun too, feel free to add a comment here. You can also email me at peter@photosbypdemott.com After you look at these beautiful portraits done by my friend Shelley, get your creative juices going and join with me to make the list longer or to call me for your totally unique senior portrait session here in the Dayton area.

Senior Portraits in Snow, Horse and Rider Portraits in Snow & Family and Kids in Snow

Gray and dreary outdoors here in the Dayton area. I cannot wait for Spring and the blossoms and new green foliage.

Right now in the Dayton area, there is not much snow. However the first weeks of February can be unpredictable and we could have what West Virginia is digging out of any time in the next several weeks (first three weeks of February, that is). As it is now, we have nothing but gray and it does not make for beautiful outdoor portraits.

BUT, if the snow flies again consider professional on-location outdoor portraits

If we do get a big dose of snow in the coming weeks, I just want you to know that I am available to take Senior Portraits in Snow. I’ve recently posted some snow portraits with horses along with some tips on how to get great snow pictures and portraits. Lots of white snow is NOT a time when you can just trust you camera to make the right decisions. If you want to take your own pictures in the snow, review my previous posts to get some good ideas, but it you want professional on-location snow portraits of your high school senior or your children (special family time portraits of mom and dad with the kids), don’t hesitate to give me a call when the weather man starts talking heavy snow. If you have a wooly horse that you want portraits with in the snow, I can do those too. If it works out, you will have extra special portraits, completely unique and fun to share. Call me at 937-478-6222 (Peter DeMott). IF the snow comes and IF someone takes me up on this offer, I will share some extra special and completely unique family portraits, senior portraits, or horse and rider portraits here on my blog.

If you missed my earlier posts with tips on getting good snow pictures and portraits with your digital camera, here they are:

http://www.photosbypdemott.com/2010/01/snow-snow-snow-taking-better-pictures-in-snow/

http://www.photosbypdemott.com/2010/01/taking-better-winter-snow-portraits-follow-up/

This post is on my web site and blog here: http://www.photosbypdemott.com . It will also appear on my personal facebook page where you are welcome to friend me: Peter DeMott . It will be on my Twitter account: pdemottphoto . And last it will show up on my facebook fan page: Peter DeMott Photography . You are welcome to share these posts and links with your friends in snowy areas, become a fan or friend or follow my web site by subscribing on the top right of my home page. Thanks, Peter DeMott

SNOW, SNOW, SNOW…taking better pictures in snow

Snow is on its way to my area here near Dayton, Ohio. It seems from the news that there is lots of snow in lots of places all over the country. I thought I would put up a blog post to help people take better pictures in snow.

Here is the big problem with snow. Your camera light meter is tuned so that it will take an average scene that has some white, some gray, and some dark tones. It tries to find an average for the scene. Average gray is 18% gray and this is why photographers sometimes take meter readings from a “gray card”. But with a snowy scene, you don’t have grays and darker tones… everything is white. Therefore your camera will take all that white and try to average it down to a medium gray by underexposing the white snow. When your pictures come back you have gray snow. If the processor does a good job, they will try to make it white for you, but it is very under exposed and will be very grainy looking even if it is processed so that it looks white. In other words all your beautiful snowy pictures will be yucky and gross.

The solution is counter intuitive. Because everything is so white, you might think the way your camera does and think that you need to reduce the exposure. Actually what you need to do is add exposure. Most cameras have some sort of exposure compensation option. It shows as plus or minus exposure (+ or -). What you will do is to give the exposure a +1 or + 1 and a 1/2 compensation on the exposure. If you have an older camera you want your needle to be be plus one or one and a half stops.

Next you will want to check the histogram of some images. Most of the data needs to be toward the right (lightness area), but not completely to the right. The right side of your histogram is an illustration data showing the amount of white in the scene. It  is where the white portions of the scene would normally show up in and AVERAGE image. In an average image you would see some data on the left (darker portions of the scene), some data in the middle (the average gray portions of the scene) and some on the right (the whiter or brighter portions of the scene). If all your data is in a big hump in the middle of the histogram, your snow is being metered as average gray and not as white (you need more exposure to move the data to the white portion of the histogram). If it is completely against the right wall of your histogram then you are over exposing the snow and it will not have any detail (you have over exposed and you need to bring it back some). It will be white, but it will not seem visually pleasing because of the lack of detail.

So what do you do in bright snow? You tell your camera you want it brighter so that the bright white snow comes out nice a white rather than middle gray.

We just watched the news and schools are already showing delays for Thursday, January 7th even though the snow is not supposed to show up until late morning. Here is Dayton we so seldom get PRETTY snow. What we get is freezing rain, dirty and salty snow, and all that nasty stuff. Even when it comes down nice a pretty and white, it is usually wet and dirty snow in no time. Your opportunities to take pictures and portraits in snow are limited. Take advantage when you have the chance.

I mentioned on my FACEBOOK business page that I am offering a special if someone wants to do their senior portraits, family portraits, animals or perhaps their horse in snow. If you are in the Dayton area and you enjoy my style and artistry in portraiture, I would encourage you to become a fan of my business page and also become a FACEBOOK friend. You can also sign up to receive this blog via your email in-box by visiting my website home page.

Hoping you have the opportunity to enjoy some pretty white snow.

Fall Colors created a blanket of leaves at our home

Just thought I would share this because I have a spring and a winter picture of our home near Germantown, Ohio. Our home is a perhaps 1910 Farmhouse with hand hewn beams in the basement under the oldest portion of the house. At one point we had to lift the front of the house to replace a rotted out sill plate which was a 10×12 solid mahogany beam. We’ve re-sided the home, added insulation (it had none) replaced all 33 windows and replaced the barn. Here is a fall picture with a blanket of leaves surrounding the front of the house. Some time in the furture I hope to convert the large room in the barn into a portrait studio. I also want to have a long overdue barn warming and invite my friends from the Equine Photographers Network to come and take pictures for a day. We have three photogenic horses and my wife makes a great model too.